Enmu from Demon Slayer isn’t one of the most powerful demons in the series, but he’s also not someone you want to meet in a dark alley. He’s powerful enough to have earned a numbered position in The Demon King Muzan’s inner circle, which is basically demon tenure. Unless he ticks Muzan off, that is.
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Enmu: A Biography
As a child, Enmu had a pretty standard little kid problem. He couldn’t distinguish the real world from the imaginary one. While most little kids grow out of this issue, Enmu could not. As an adult, Enmu pretended to be a doctor. He definitely did not graduate from medical school. Nevertheless, he began “treating” patients with quack methods like hypnosis. He got off on telling patients who didn’t have long to live that they had made a full recovery. At best, it’s a misunderstanding of the placebo effect. At worst, it’s just getting off on the manipulation. Red flags all around.
One night, Muzan broke into the still-human Enmu’s house and started to eat his intestines. Still alive, Enmu began praising Muzan’s … technique? Because Enmu is usually floating around in the la-la land of his mind, he doesn’t experience pain. As a result, he only got warm and fuzzy feelings from staring into the handsome face of the Demon King. After Enmu died, Muzan revived the boy on a whim, turning him into a demon.
Enmu began rising through the ranks of demonkind, until finally reaching the Lower Ranks. After the Lower Ranks demons failed to impress Muzan, he murdered them all save for Enmu. Why? Because while all the other demons attempted to flee or make excuses, Enmu told the Demon King he was thrilled to accept death at his master’s hands. Good call. Muzan rewarded Enmu with more of his blood and sent him off to kill the Hashira.
What are Enmu’s abilities?
Enmu was already formidable as Lower Rank One, even before he was powered up by Muzan’s blood. After his power-up, it’s arguable that he could have become Upper Rank material. Enmu’s speed and reflexes were enhanced enough to easily run rings around Tanjiro, who had mastered Total Concentration Breathing, an advanced breathing technique that powered up his sword strokes.
Like all demons, Enmu can manipulate his flesh at will. He was able to do freaky-deeky standard fare demon moves, like remotely controlling amputated limbs or creating gross tentacles out of his body. His flesh manipulation technique reached its pinnacle when he merged with a full-length train to absorb its 200 passengers into his body. Nasty.
Enmu’s Blood Demon Art allowed him to instantly put his victims to sleep, usually by speaking a phrase that instantly knocked them out. Enmu-induced sleep is much deeper than regular sleep, considering that Nezuko was unable to wake Tanjiro up even with a headbutt to the face.
Enmu compounds his sleep-inducing abilities with the power to manipulate and enter people’s dreams, Freddy Krueger-style. Unlike Freddy, Enmu made his victims have nice dreams. Beautiful dreams. Dreams that they would never want to wake up from. If that wasn’t enough to keep his victims under his control, however, Enmu would turn his victim’s dreams into nightmares. The only way to resist Enmu’s dreamscapes is through sheer power of will. Tanjiro was able to free himself from Enmu’s dream control only by committing suicide over and over and over again. So traumatic.
While Enmu’s dream possession abilities are extremely powerful, they do have some notable drawbacks. When entering the mind of a dreamer, their dreams are made manifest into a physical reality. This mental landscape is known as a dreamer’s “Spiritual Core”. Tanjiro’s Spiritual Core, for instance, appears as an endless blue sky. If the Spiritual Core is destroyed, the dreamer will die. However, the Spiritual Core of a person can be potent enough to influence someone entering a dreamer’s mental landscape. After entering Tanjiro’s mind, one of Enmu’s human agents was changed by Tanjiro’s sense of inner kindness. The guy stopped wanting to be evil and dipped without destroying the Spiritual Core. Kill ’em with kindness, baby. And then with a sword stroke to the neck.
(featured image: Ufotable)
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